I thought I’d better write a bit about this marathon. It is a fairly long time ago and I wanted to get some words down before the memories fade and I lose too many brain cells with age to recall the weekend. The planning was a bit crazy for this marathon, and on the day it went a bit wrong.
Before the kids came along Yuk-Lam and I would enjoy a city weekend break. We enjoyed site seeing. Yuk-Lam always enjoys shopping and I didn’t mind letting her shop if she let me disappear for a few hours to run a marathon.
When we arranged the Rotterdam trip it was to be during term time and as Yuk-Lam is a teacher we had to be back on Sunday for her to return to work on the Monday morning. I cannot remember the details of the out going flight but it was the return flight that was the key to this holiday. The last flight home was mid afternoon. The marathon started around 9am so I was expecting to finish just after midday. This gave me a couple of hours to get from the finish, get changed, take a bus to the airport and get checked in for our plane to return home. Anyhow we booked it and the plan to get back to the airport in time for me came part of this marathon challenge.
We had arranged to meet up with a couple of friends Barry (who was also doing the marathon and is a sub 3 hour man) and his wife Maggie. Barry was planning on a time of about 2 hours 50 mins and I wanted to get close to 3 hours if not break it. To follow Barry would give me a good chance of doing this.
Mine and Barry’s plan on the day of the race close to the start time was to run round Rotterdam as a warm up then nip into the start line, hopefully near the front for a quick start. Well on the day we warmed up but then things started to go wrong.
Unbeknown to us at the mass start everyone had to enter from the back and there was no way of nipping in near the front as there was a high mesh barrier on either side of the mass start. This meant that after our warm up we got to the start with 5 minutes to go and were stuck at the back of the field. We had 10 thousand people in front of us! We spent some 5 miles dodging and overtaking slower runners before we found space to run steadily at our planned pace. This had used up much more energy than had been planned.
I have always planned my marathons round getting to certain points at certain times, for instance 10 miles, half way and twenty miles. I hadn’t planned for there to be no mile markers instead there was kilometre marks, it’s Europe of course!
The next mistake was to try and catch up the lost time. I ran very hard for the middle part of the marathon putting me on track for a PB which would be very close to 3 hours. But I had tried too hard and paid for it over the last 5 miles. My rate per mile dropped and I found it really hard going. I eventually came in with a time of 3 hour 8 mins 40 secs still my 3rd best time to date. On reflection a great time but on the day I was quite disappointed after the training and hope I had put into the event.
I can not remember Barry’s exact time now but it was around 2 hours 50 minutes, well done Barry!
I crossed the line absolutely spent and feeling awful. I just wanted to curl up in a corner, put my head on a pillow and go to sleep. Oh but wait a minute I’ve only got 2 hours to get on a plane. Who’s idea had that been? Yuk-Lam, Barry and Maggie were all trying their best to get me to their hotel room so I could get showered, changed and ready for the trip home. I didn’t want to move. They eventually dragged me to Barry and Maggie’s room. I went on their balcony for some fresh air and again they had to nag me to get in the shower.
We left Barry and Maggie who were staying another day and went to the bus station.
I sunk into my seat on the bus I had no energy and kept feeling sick. I really didn’t want to be travelling. At the airport we queued to check in our bags and I lay on the floor. I was expecting the airport staff to refuse me to fly. After check in we waited for our plane so I crashed out along several seats. Yuk-Lam carried our hand luggage onto the plane and again I slumped into my seat. As we flew home I had chance to rest, drink and nibble a sandwich. By the time we landed at Manchester Airport I had completely come round. I was a totally different person to the one which had got on to the plane less than an hour and a half earlier. I carried the bags. I bet the hostesses wondered what was going on with me.
I’m never arranging an event like that again!
We live and learn.
